NEWSMAKER Q&A: Neil and Bree Stover of Waynesboro, rising from the ashes of a house fire

Monday

Apr 21, 2014 at 2:00 PM

The day before Thanksgiving, the Stovers arrived home to find their Highland Avenue house in flames. Almost everything was lost, but the family plans to rebuild and the fire has given them a new perspective on what is truly important.

Joshua Vaughn/The Record Herald

The day before Thanksgiving, the Stovers arrived home to find their Highland Avenue house in flames. Almost everything was lost, but the family plans to rebuild and the fire has given them a new perspective on what is truly important.

Can you tell me a little bit about what happened on Nov. 26?Neil was down at Virginia Avenue Fire hall patching up some drywall, Bree was over at her best friend’s house on the other side of town with the kids. About 6 p.m., the girls decided to go to the Velvet Cafe for dinner so Bree called Neil and he left to meet them. A little after 7 p.m. we left to head home to find our house in flames.

How much of the home or its contents was salvaged?A few plastic tubs in the basement with odds and ends that the fire hadn’t reached and weren’t soaked by the water or ruined by smoke damage. Most of the office was salvageable, we had always kept this door closed to keep the kids out of the breakables and paperwork, including a curio cabinet with Neil’s collectibles and filing cabinet with important documents.

How has your family been dealing with the fire?It’s pretty much put behind us at this point. At first it had really taken a huge toll. Just the realization of all our belongings being gone but after we coped we got over all the materialistic things and noticed the bigger picture. We were all together and all right.

Did you do anything special over Christmas?We received a real Christmas tree, which made it pretty nice. Bree had wanted a real tree each year and we always just pulled the fake one out of the basement, but she got her wish this year. A lot of time spent with friends and family. Kamden was a little concerned that Santa would forget him since he wasn’t at his house, but we reminded him that Santa knew where to find him!

How has the community come out to help support your family?We couldn’t be more proud to say we live in one of the best heartfelt towns around. The amount of people that reached out was outstanding. What made it more overwhelming and crazy was that we were receiving packages and letters from the whole East Coast, not just Pennsylvania! Things from Florida, New Jersey, Maine, the Carolinas, etc.! It is very reassuring to know that in a time of need when you are at your lowest, you have wonderful friends looking out for you and there to help in any way possible.

What has the community’s support meant to you?This is the hardest part for us, we sent out exactly 350 “thank you” cards we had printed to the ones that we had addresses to, but we feel that just saying thank you can’t really express how really grateful we are! We wish that there was some way we could recognize each and every person that donated whether it was time, a hand, a shoulder, food, gift cards, monetary donations, toys, clothes, toiletries, furniture, you name it! To those that we didn’t get to personally respond back to through call or letter or face, THANK YOU so very much, it didn’t go unnoticed.

What are your future plans for the home?We actually will begin tearing it down after Easter here and rebuild completely. We are hoping to celebrate Thanksgiving or Christmas at least, back up on the hill.

Anything else you would like to add?We’d like to give back this year, to a family that is in need, so we look forward to reaching out to someone this holiday season in hopes that they appreciate it as much as we did. We just wanted to remind everyone as well, “things” can be replaced but FAMILY cannot.

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